Homeworld 2

Complex Simple

an idea by someone

ModDB page (official site):

http://www.moddb.com/mods/homeworld-2-complex-simple
You can post screenshots and videos!
Or ask questions in the comment section!
Past, Present, and Future of the Homeworld..................................................................................... 13
Hiigaran ................................................................................................................................................... 13
Vaygr ........................................................................................................................................................ 15
Kadeshi .................................................................................................................................................... 16
Turanic Raiders ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Progenitor .............................................................................................................................................. 18
Complex or Simple? ................................................................................................................................. 19
Advanced Features .................................................................................................................................... 20
Incentive System ................................................................................................................................... 20
Crate System ......................................................................................................................................... 23
HAX!!!!!!!! ............................................................................................................................................... 23
Pilot Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 24
Endgame Crisis ...................................................................................................................................... 25
Tips for Campaign ..................................................................................................................................... 26
Tips for Territories ................................................................................................................................... 28
Tips for Sole Survivor .............................................................................................................................. 29
Tips for Survival ......................................................................................................................................... 30
Where’s the Goddamn Gameplay Manual?......................................................................................... 31
 Installation
1. Extract all *.big files into the DATA folder of your Homeworld 2 game folder.
For example:
D:\Homeworld2\Data
For Steam users with the Homeworld Remastered bundle, just find the installation location of
your Steam games and then use the Homeworld2Classic\Data folder.
2. Go to Homeworld2\Bin\Release folder, right click on Homeworld2.exe and create a shortcut.
And be sure your Homeworld 2 is already v1.1!
3. Right click the shortcut, and left click , at the end of the box, add:

-mod

SimplexART.big,SimplexCORE.big,SimplexSHIP.big,SimplexSKYBOX.big,SimplexSOUND.big

-hardwarecursor
Note 1: there is a space at the beginning!
Note 2: the order of the *.big files doesn’t matter, but they must be separated by commas
(no space)!
For example:
D:\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe -mod
SimplexART.big,SimplexCORE.big,SimplexSHIP.big,SimplexSKYBOX.big,SimplexSOUND.big -hardwarecursor
(Don't forget to click )
4. You can now play this mod via the new shortcut! If you want to play in widescreen mode,
continue reading below.
For widescreen users:
Add “ -w 1920 -h 1080” to the line and the game resolution will become 1920*1080. The
same goes for 1680*1050, 1366*768, and so on.
Like this:
If it crashes:
After crash, immediately go to Bin\Release folder, open (not ErrorLog.txt) with NotePad,
copy everything inside and send to the creator via private message on ModDB. You can expect to
get the official answer in a timely fashion.

Not necessary but strongly recommended:

Add “ -luatrace” to the target line, so that additional gaming information can be displayed in Hw2.log
– can save a lot of words when you want to have your problems analyzed!
 Recommended Settings

In the “GAMEPLAY” settings:

Turn off “NLIPS”

In the “VIDEO” settings:

Turn on “VSYNC”
Turn on “DETAIL GEOMETRY”
Turn off “GEOMETRY SCALING”
Turn all volumes down to below 50%
 Hardware Requirements
Due to its awesomeness, this mod is innately hardware demanding and is only recommended to be
played on a decent desktop PC (many laptops will simply crash when loading it)!

This mod is very heavy on the CPU side because it runs tons of complex functions every second.
A CPU below 4.0 GHz will not be enough to run this mod at the highest unit capacity settings
fluently in the later game. If your CPU is the bottleneck, overclock it! Don’t bother with the number
of cores because Homeworld 2 only utilizes one core (one logical processor)!

This mod is very heavy on the GPU side too and it can easily use 3 GB of graphics memory. If
your graphics card doesn’t have enough memory, the game will most likely crash! Many players
with integrated graphics have reported crash upon launch probably due to this reason! Download
a tool like GPU-Z to check if your video card is the limiting factor when you run this mod!
Because this mod has thousands of very trivial files that need to be loaded when you play,
loading/saving a game can be really painful sometimes. It is totally proven with this mod that an
adequate SSD will easily improve your loading/saving speed by 10 folds! The key difference here is
not really the continuous read/write speed, but the random read/write speed. Just buy the fastest
SSD you can afford and you’ll see it’s totally worth it (unless you want to spend a significantly higher
proportion of your life reading those salty help tips during loading)!

Since Homeworld 2 is a 32-bit program, it won’t eat more than 4 GB of RAM. However, similar to
the SSD, a faster RAM (if supported by your CPU) will also help the mod run faster.
 FAQ/Troubleshooting

A: Yes! Just locate your Homeworld2Classic folder, and do the same thing as the installation
instruction said.

A: Check if you have quotation marks in your original target box. If you have quotation marks in
the first place, then the new target line should be saved like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe" -mod xxxx.big,yyyy.big,zzzz.big -hardwarecursor

A: According to some players, if you are using an AMD graphics card and you are installing this mod
on HW2 Classic in the Steam Remastered bundle, you may not be able to run the game properly.
In this case, adding “ -nopbuffer” to the target line of your shortcut should solve the problem
(though the downside is this will remove all the shadow effects in your game).

A: In some cases (specifically, if you have the fucked up NVIDIA drivers after version 425.31), you
may see your game erroneously displayed on the second monitor while your mouse is still limited
to the primary monitor, making the game completely unplayable. This is a display driver bug and the
simplest fix is to set your game resolution to below or above your primary monitor’s actual
resolution (for example, if your primary monitor is 1920x1080, you can set your game resolution
to 1919x1080 or 1921x1080 in the shortcut’s target line).

A: Yes. Homeworld 2 can be displayed across multiple monitors just by setting the resolution
parameters in the shortcut. For example, if you have two 1920x1080 monitors and you want the
game to be displayed on both screens, you can set the resolution to 3840x1080 in the target line
of your shortcut.

A: Check the target line of your shortcut again – all the *.big files must be connected by commas,
otherwise the mod will not load properly.

A: Check all your options in the skirmish menu (race, game settings, etc.), if you have any default
option that appears to be blank, set it manually again. Also check the start positions of all your
players (especially after you turned off then turned on some players) – if you have conflicting start
positions, the game will also crash while loading.
A: Check your badges. If you are using your own badges (other than the badges provided with the
mod), go to your Data\badges folder, find the badges you are using and see if they have strange
characters in their filename. If they contain some characters like “[” and “]”, the game will crash. If
this is the case, just rename the badges that are causing the problem.

A: Turn on the vertical sync in your video settings.

A: Check your Data folder, if you have a folder named “shaders” in it, delete it! Because this folder
is from other mods you previously installed, it can override the rendering of this mod.

A: Check the target box of your shortcut. If you have “ -overridebigfile” in it, delete it. Because “ -
overridebigfile” makes the files in your data folder overwrite the big file, if you have files from other
mods in your data folder, similar files in this mod will be overwritten, including sound effects.
A: Go to your Bin folder and rename “driverConfig.lua” to anything else (as explained in this link).
Alternatively, you can add “ -noVideoErrors” to the target line of your shortcut.

A: If you have colour calibration softwares running in the background, your screen colour profile
might be reset to default every time you switch to the game. To allow Homeworld 2 to use your
global colour profile, add “ -windowed” to the target line of your shortcut.

A: Because Homeworld 2 will explode in your face when a single big file is larger than 2GB! And
this mod has already passed that 2GB limit…
 Past, Present, and Future of the Homeworld

——A Saga of the Galactic Civilizations

Hiigaran

The exiles, who survived against all odds, have learned the hard way that the universe is
anything but predictable. Since the last arduous victory against the Vaygr invasion and the discovery
of the ancient hyperspace network, Hiigarans have been only more bewildered by their past
glorious empire as depicted by the Bentusi. Despite all the astonishing breakthroughs made in
astronautic technology these years, whenever speaking of Bentusi, a profound riddle unfolds
beneath the Hiigaran skies.
Why were the Bentusi so determined to put an end to the ancient Hiigaran fleet, even at the
cost of war? If it was really an inadvertent outcome as the Bentusi claimed, how could they not
have expected the certain taking over of the Tiidan Empire, and eventually -- the exile? If there
wasn’t a conspiracy between the Bentusi and the Tiidan Empire, why has this true galactic civilization
been behaving so over-warmheartedly to the backward Hiigarans, often almost repentantly?
Because the Bentusi have sacrificed their last vessel in order to save the Hiigaran mothership
in the battle against Keepers, now it is up to the Hiigarans themselves to unravel this great mystery,
together with the mysteries surrounding the Progenitor and the Kadeshi. While most Hiigarans
believe the Kadeshi are just a pirate clan with bloodthirsty religious beliefs, who lost their souls in
the vastness of time and space during the exile, some new evidence begins to suggest that the
religion and the very ethnic identity of the Kadeshi existed long before the exile, even long before
the annihilation of the ancient Hiigaran fleet. Furthermore, it is clear that some doctrines of the
Kadeshi religion also involved Sajuuk. Considering the only reason the Bentusi gave for eliminating
the ancient Hiigaran fleet, no matter how farfetched, was that the ancient Hiigarans were somehow
exploiting and abusing the power of the hyperspace core, thus a lesson must be given, could this
mean the Bentusi, even with an identically powerful core, were afraid of something? Regarding the
bellicose nature of the Kadeshi befiefs, could it even be the Kadeshi that were in charge of the
ancient Hiigaran fleet at that time, led to the downfall of the Hiigarans, and separated themselves
from the rest during the exile? Could the Kadeshi even have been deliberately abandoned in the
nebula known as the Garden of Kadesh during the exile?
As truth is never true until it is unveiled, a new journey of the Hiigarans must begin.
Vaygr

A militant superpower, hegemony of the galaxy, and a combination of hardcore Tiidan loyalists
and audacious nomadic warriors, the Vaygr has always been a formidable force to be reckoned with.
Even though it has failed to conquer Hiigara and lost a leader during the conquest, the Reich to a
great extent, is still sound and strong, largely owning to its relatively loose reliance on a single chain
of command. Due to the sheer length of time the Vaygr have spent in space and a lot of heritage
left by the Progenitor at hand, they have developed and embraced a full spectrum of space
technologies seen in both their ships and weapons. And when the warlike nomads move to a new
place, here’s the dogma you are most likely to hear: ”Either lead the way, follow the way, or get out
of the way!”
Kadeshi

The siblings of the ancient Hiigarans, thought to be lost during the exile to Kharak – or were
they? It may appear that the nebula, or the Garden as the Kadeshi themselves refer to, is their
religion. Nevertheless, as the Hiigarans only recently realized, the sacred Garden is just one facet
of the Kadeshi beliefs. Other doctrines or tenets also include Kadesh itself and even more
surprisingly, Sajuuk. These beliefs together have been existing among the Kadeshi long before the
exile. Whether it was the Kadeshi that led to the collapse of the ancient Hiigaran Empire, and if so,
why, are all profundities baffling the Hiigarans at this time. As the Kadeshi are regrouping their
mighty Needships and fearless Swarmers, it seems that the Hiigarans are destined to run into their
evil twins again. But how this is going to end, only the Kadeshi themselves know.
Turanic Raiders

Unscrupulous, wicked beyond imagination, the Turanic Raiders commit all sorts of worst
crimes even by their own standards – cheating with aimbot, child kidnapping, slave trafficking, drug
dealing, arms smuggling, money laundering, cheating with aimbot again… Such sons of bitches, have
somehow achieved fighting capacity, looting whatever, whenever, and wherever they want. The
Turanic Raiders are the authentic scum of the universe! Neither do they follow any rules, nor do
they care about any consequences – the only reason these pirates are still alive is alcohol. As a
result, their well-known unconventional fighting style, if they do have one, is dirty and obscene. It
can never be over-exaggerated that when you bump into a mob of pirates like this, everything you
know about space warfare will be just wrong…
Progenitor

The ancient super civilization that has been dormant in the galaxy for aeons, is now being
awakened by the disturbance in the recent war between Hiigaran and Vaygr. Having forged three
hyperspace cores once, spurring the dawn of civilizations across the galaxy, He Whose Hand Shapes
What Is, is palpably not content with the current galactic landscape. Who were the Progenitors?
Were they extinct? If so, how? Were they doomed by the AI created by themselves? Or did they
transform themselves into a being in the form of AI? Or, was there even a higher civilization that
wiped them out? Regardless of all the wild speculations, one thing is for sure, the awakening vessels
controlled by the Progenitor AI, including the infamous Keepers, are not coming in peace. Incredibly
powerful and seemingly able to evolve via nano-assembly, the returning Progenitor is unpredictably
brutal, of whose caprice the entire Homeworld system will soon be at the mercy. Behind those
cold-blooded sensors, to the arbitrary logic of the Progenitor AI, everything must be like this: “If
you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.”
 Complex or Simple?
Although this mod was originally based on Complex 8 beta 0.9, countless unique new features have
developed since then. Here’s just a short preview (for lazy readers like you) of this mod’s main
differences from the original Complex mod:

·5 races in total, including Hiigaran,Vaygr, Kadeshi, Turanic Raiders, and Progenitor

·Everything is new, new ships, weapons, subsystems, upgrades, effects, maps, soundtracks, and even

badges

·Tons of sophisticated functions not only bring the complexity of the game to a whole new level,

but also enable new ways of messing around unimaginable before. A luxurious multi-role cheating
console is even integrated for sandbox’ sake!

·Completely refreshed physical parameters introduce a much more intense combat experience,

while emphasizing the necessity for a strategist’s nerve, which is crucial in conquering this
overwhelming complexity. To achieve victory, being fast and strong simply isn’t enough; you always
need to be faster and stronger!
 Advanced Features

Incentive System

When turned on in the skirmish settings, the incentive system can give players extra RUs, and of
course, extra fun! By accomplishing specific tasks, you can earn the following accolades in game:
--Collateral Damage--

DOUBLE KILL - destroy 2 enemy ships at the same time

TRIPLE KILL - destroy 3 enemy ships at the same time

QUATRA KILL - destroy 4 enemy ships at the same time

ULTRA KILL - destroy 5 enemy ships at the same time

TEAM KILL - destroy 6 or more enemy ships at the same time

--General Killing Sprees--

KILLING SPREE - destroy 5 enemy squads without losing a squadron

RAMPAGE - destroy 10 enemy squads without losing a squadron

RELENTLESS - destroy 15 enemy squads without losing a squadron

UNSTOPPABLE - destroy 20 enemy squads without losing a squadron

SLAYER - destroy 25 enemy squads without losing a squadron

--Capital Ship Killing Sprees--
EXPLOSIVE SPREE - destroy 5 enemy capital ships or high-value units without losing a
squadron

DEMOLITIONS EXPERT - destroy 10 enemy capital ships or high-value units without

losing a squadron

HURT LOCKER - destroy 15 enemy capital ships or high-value units without losing a
squadron

--Cheap Individual Killing Sprees--

SNIPING SPREE - destroy 5 low-value enemy ships (fighters, corvettes, etc.) one by
one without losing a squadron

MARKSMAN - destroy 10 low-value enemy ships (fighters, corvettes, etc.) one by one
without losing a squadron

SHARPSHOOTER - destroy 15 low-value enemy ships (fighters, corvettes, etc.) one by

one without losing a squadron

--Special Awards--
NO JOY - ending any of the above sprees of your opponents by destroying at least one
of the enemy squadrons, the more and the higher the sprees you terminate, the more
RUs you will receive
ARTILLERY SHOT - destroy a really high-value target (no less than 5000 RUs), the more
expensive the vessel you destroy, the more RUs you will receive

SHIP REPAIR - reward for repairing own or allied ships, the more repairers you assign,
the more RUs you will receive

REVENGE - destroy a ship owned by the player who most recently destroyed yours,
the more valuable the ship you previously lost, the more RUs you will receive from
the following revenge

ASSIST - destroy a target at the same time any of your allies makes a kill
MAD - mutually assured destruction, destroy any ship owned by enemy at the same
time you lose yours, the more valuable the ships from the both sides, the more RUs
you will receive

SHIP CAPTURE - the more valuable the ship you capture, the more RUs you will receive
 FIRST BLOOD - the player who makes the first kill in a match will receive this accolade

FINAL BLOW - get the last kill before an enemy's death, the more powerful this enemy
once was, the more RUs you will receive

Tips:
1. Even when you are not meeting the criteria above and not receiving any accolade, you can still
gain a small portion of bounty RUs as long as you are killing enemy ships.
2. Using special WMDs (such as Juggernauts, Heavy Nuclear Bombs, IEDs, Apocalypse Cenacles,
and Explosive Traps) to blow up enemies from a distance will not earn you any medal or bounty.
Well… Reportedly, it’s because these weapons are against galactic laws…
3. Special impact weapons (such as all kinds of Torpedoes, Tango Mines, Light Granules, Jihadi
Swarmers, Cruise Missiles, Roller Mines, and JDAM) will earn you medals just like conventional
weapons do.
4. Just for fun – you can end an ally’s spree if you can manage to kill some allied ships with your
own weapon, and you may receive a NO JOY accolade for that TROLOLOLOL~
Crate System

If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing! Attempting to replicate the original crate
system in Homeworld 1, Complex Simple overdid it and created something far more complex,
bringing the fun of crates to an unprecedented new level!

When turned on in the skirmish settings, this Crate System can give you any of the following
surprises:

Exotic ships – each one has over a dozen random independent attributes upon spawning
RUs – the classic role of a crate you can expect
Energy – you can fill up your fleet’s energy pool using crates
Experience – promote nearby ships within 4000m
Technology – grant all current research items, this is a very efficient way to advance your tech
tree
Health – heal nearby ships within 4000m or all ships
KABOOM!!!! – nearby ships within 4000m will be kicked out of the map!

To unbox a crate, all you need to do is to move any of your ships to the vicinity (1000m) of
a crate, then the crate will unbox itself. Note that AI players will also race to unbox these crates.
So, hurry up! Don’t fall behind in this crate rush!

HAX!!!!!!!!

Feel like a noob but want to play like a pro? No problem! Complex Simple has a built-in
trainer so advanced and so complex, that it is also unprecedented throughout the entire
Homeworld history!
 To activate the cheating console, all you need to do is clicking the Class Selector button (the
green square) above your taskbar, then click the Yin Yang icon in the Class Selector panel, and you
can enjoy the pure awesomeness inside!

Pilot Mode

Although Homeworld 2 doesn’t offer a pilot view like Cataclysm, this doesn’t mean it cannot
be turned into a flight simulation game! That’s what the Pilot Mode in this mod brings you, for any
ship that can move! When activated, you can control the ship to fly towards the direction your
camera is pointing at. Use zoom to control the ship’s speed (closer zoom will reduce the speed).

Pilot Mode HUD Explained:

1: Angle of Attack – this shows you the vertical direction of your ship’s movement
2: Heading – this shows you the direction of flight, with reference to the sensor manager
3: Ship Speed – this shows you how fast the ship is currently traveling at
4: Target Vector – the direction of the flight target (relative to the camera). In Aggressive Tactic,
this is also the target the ship will be shooting at, and a rangefinder will tell you how far away the
ship is aiming (controlled by zoom).
5: Speed Vector – the direction of the ship’s movement (relative to the camera).
6: Angle of Attack visualized – same with no.1, but more intuitive.

There’re two modes for the Pilot Mode: Aggressive and Non-Aggressive, depending on the tactic
you are using. Non-Aggressive mode is for drive only; Aggressive mode will activate the ship’s
weapon system and let it shoot at the target at front.

Endgame Crisis

Inspired by Stellaris, Complex Simple has programmed several types of endgame crises into
the game. If a game lasts long enough, then you might just see how the universe you know comes
to an end!

Not all endings are bad endings, but depending on your level of noobery, you can say all of
them are bad endings…

Depending on the map size, the endgame crisis may come at different timescales (with larger
maps being significantly later). To prepare for unforeseen consequences, it’s always wise to have a
very strong fleet. After all, any player that hasn’t built up a very strong fleet at some point this late
in the game doesn’t deserve to be alive in the first place!
 Tips for Campaign

As the double-horned unicorn in all Complex franchise, Complex Simple is 100% compatible
with the original Campaign of Homeworld 2!

Although the campaign plot remains vanilla, getting through it requires a high level of
understanding of Complex Simple. Therefore, if you are a complete noob, it is highly
recommended that you DO NOT rush into this game mode before you can have a decent grasp
of this mod in the skirmish mode. Otherwise, you’ll be yelling “WTF!!!!” everywhere for sure…

For an experienced player of Complex Simple, all the 15 missions are actually reasonably
easy, because if you know what to do, you are almost certain that you will always win. Just to
remind those players between complete noob and hardcore, here’re some useful hints:

Always have some Crew Cells around – Crew Cells help you recruit your pilots and officers so
you can always build new ships. Furthermore, after each hyperspace jump, your recruiting list will
be at minimum because all the crew are still in hibernation. In this case, Crew Cells are also
crucial in bringing your fleet back to function at the beginning of every mission.

When you have time, make good use of it – there’re many missions where you’ll have to involve
in fierce combat right from the beginning, and it will be too late if you haven’t prepared for it
already. In contrast, there’re a few particular missions and a few particular points where you can
farm (collect resources, advance your tech tree, and strengthen your fleet), don’t waste them
because you’ll seriously need them!

Level up before a mission ends – it is the highest Military Rank you have on your Crew Station
that will be inherited into the next mission, not the Honour Points.Your starting Honour Points
in a new mission greatly depend on your Military Rank in the last mission.
Get the Fleet Admiral Rank as soon as possible – by farming or whatever, you know…

Defense Field is a matter of life and death – unlike the original Homeworld 2, Complex Simple put
the defense field to serious use in Campaign, while making it much easier for the player to
manipulate. In many missions (some are even right from the beginning), defense field is the only
thing that can save your fleet from overwhelming incoming fire. Build Defense Field Modules on all
three of your stations and your Mothership; always have some Defense Field Frigates around, so
you can protect any objective immediately; build Combat Systems on your Battlecruisers to enable
defense field when they have more than 400 experience; use Defender Drones upgraded with
Micro Defense Field to distract enemy fire…

Use Heavy Ion Cannon whenever and wherever you can – upgrade your Mothership’s Heavy Ion
Cannon to the max level, and it’s a weapon of mass destruction! Why do you need to sacrifice your
expensive attack force when you can vapourize your major targets from kilometers away?

Don’t lose your three stations – you can afford to lose several Battleships, but you are very unlikely
to afford to lose your three stations, especially your Crew Station and Power Station in the later
missions. Because once these ships are lost, it will take enormous amount of RUs to rebuild all the
subsystems, and the loss of Crew Station will probably paralyze your entire fleet production for
quite some time. So, use defense field, meat shield, or whatever to protect these stations just like
your Mothership!

Build an Arsenal Ship before you can build Battlecruisers – this provides your entire fleet with
decent long range defense capability. You can use its heavy artillery to cope with any imminent
threat from a distance.

Always remember to build missiles – they can save you a lot of nasty work even when you think
your fleet is strong. Also upgrade your missiles so they can have max damage and speed.

Make use of the Strategic Formation – a Strategic Shipyard can not only upgrade your Mothership
with nukes, but also provide heavy defense for the entire fleet. Dock all the stations and Mothership
to the Strategic Shipyard, enable and upgrade Mass Shield, then you can withstand the worst impact
coming from the front (especially Nuke Cannons and Cruise Missiles).

You mad bro? – don’t get mad at a video game! When you admit you are not up to this, the luxury
cheating menu is right there for you! XD
 Tips for Territories

The Territories game mode comes with its own map set. It was once an independent small
mod for HW2, but cannibalized into Complex Simple because of one single player’s
recommendation – yes, you heard it right, your opinion does matter! Even if you know nothing
about modding, your ideas and feedbacks can actually make a difference and become part of the
force shaping this game!

In this game mode, each player can capture and expand their territory through a vast grid of
hyperspace gates. To set up the game properly, player at position 5 and 6 must not be empty
(player 5 is the owner of the hyperspace network and player 6 is the owner of the neutral
territories). The key to victory lies in managing the fine balance between offensive and defensive
operations, since sending troops to capture new territories often gives the enemy a chance to
capture your base. Therefore, you must carefully calculate each move beforehand and pretend you
are a chess master (even when you are a completely helpless noob).

Just for those of you who think life is still manageable, Complex Simple also innovated one
feature to bring this whole mess up to a new level: if you enable the Occupy Homeworld option,
then player 6 will suddenly come alive and try to oppress all other players who are just trying to
make a measly living. Hmmm… Sounds alarmingly similar to real life? Now we are talking.
 Tips for Sole Survivor

The Sole Survivor game mode only gives each player one unit to start with.You can choose
the class of the starting unit in game options (fighters, corvettes, frigates, destroyers, etc., or
totally random), but that’s only half the story. The real fun is you can upgrade your single ship
through crates! This concept was originally inspired by Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor, but
predictably, Complex Simple has totally overdone it again, bringing in much more crate types (a
lot more than the ordinary skirmish mode) and the potential of all kinds of upgrades is basically
limitless! In this game mode, after getting enough firepower upgrades from crate, it’s even
possible for a scout to kill a battlecruiser!

Of course, this is a very intense race for all the crates in the map because it’s all about
comparative advantage. In fact, the AI players in this mode are programmed to constantly find the
nearest crates and calculate their accumulated upgrades against any encountered opponent
before deciding whether to engage or not. If you fall short in the crate race, you are doomed for
sure! Fortunately, for those of you who lack hand-eye coordination or are just plain lazy, Complex
Simple has provided a self-driving algorithm to allow your ship automatically seek the crates just
like AI players do, so you can sit in the back while reflecting on your mental incompetence! Just
press F4 (aggressive tactic) to enable autopilot for your sole survivor, and F2 or F3 to disable it.

Depending on the classes of ships owned by existing players, you may get additional ships
from crates too. In the case where you have multiple ships but your original sole survivor is lost,
the sole survivor status can be passed on to the next ship and that ship will be treated as the
sole survivor.

If you have allies in the Sole Survivor mode, any upgrades acquired from crates will be
shared between allies. This means ganging up will bring significant advantage over lonely
opponents – sounds exactly like what people would do in post-apocalyptic worlds… No?
 Tips for Survival

The Survival game mode is a proving ground for the strongest player – because only the
strongest will survive! Unlike the Sole Survivor game mode, this Survival mode is a full-blown RTS
game by itself. But unlike ordinary skirmish games, waves of enemies will automatically spawn
from one player and attack all the rest players. As the game goes on, the quantity and the
composition of the waves will make it harder and harder for those players to survive. Depending
on the game settings, the difficulty can be anywhere between rage quit and uninstall.

There are really no useful tips that can save you in this situation, except perhaps – get good
kid! You can do this solo or team up with all the allies you can get, but don’t be surprised if you
still die like a noob first when playing 5v1! If you are not a noob, or if you are the type of noob
that doesn’t even know how to uninstall, then do not go gentle into that good night! Try to beat
the incredible odds and earn your bragging rights! Then you can die! RIP…
 Where’s the Goddamn Gameplay Manual?
Although this mod may look overwhelmingly complex to a beginner, it’s actually designed to be as
noob friendly as possible – like the built-in trainer, this mod also has a built-in gameplay manual to
teach you the most essential things. So, you can just learn while playing, without having to read
another PDF manual!

To browse the built-in gameplay manual, simply click the “INFO” button on the Taskbar, then select
the topic you are interested in on the left panel of the INFO screen.

Most key features necessary for becoming a master of this mod are well explained in this built-in
manual. These features are basically the same ones shared with the Complex mod, such as Military
Rank, Honour Points, Crew/Officers, Energy, Megaliths, Population, Trade Network, Remote
Monitor, Planet Colonization, etc.